Napkins
by scubaluver
Summary: A young Luke frets over a seemingly simple school assignment. Writen for FanFic100 prompt Square


"Napkins." Luke grunted in his father's direction as he walked into the hardware store after school.

"Napkins?" Bill Danes furrowed his brow, confused. "You spill something, kid?"

"Nah."

"Okay…." Bill waited for illumination.

None came.

"Napkins?" He tried prompting his son to say more. Bill Danes wasn't a terribly talkative man. He prided himself on being able to make his points succinctly. His son was the same way, he guessed. And mostly they understood each other. But when it came to "napkins", he was at a loss.

Luke nodded silently.

Bill rolled his eyes but went back to his work. Luke would elaborate in time, or he wouldn't.

Luke opened up his bag and began working on his math problems. He usually helped out in the store for as long as he could before starting his homework, but working involved working with his father, and working with his father involved being asked questions. He didn't want to answer questions.

Homework, however, failed to keep his mind off his troubles. The longer he tried to concentrate on his assignment the more the events of the day replayed in his head.

"_Listen up everybody. Friday is going to be the class Christmas party. We need everybody to chip in! Who wants to volunteer?" _

_30 kids in the class and 30 hands shot up. "Great!" the teacher grinned. "Who wants to bring cookies?" _

30 hands remained in the air. Mrs. Reynolds smiled, "Okay, Johnny, Kelly, Katie." 

Luke sighed; apparently one needed some kind of cutesy name to be picked to bring cookies. 

"_Okay, now Brownies," Mrs. Reynolds called. She picked another two kids to bring brownies. Another two kids were asked to bring cupcakes. She specifically asked Michael if his mom could make her famous chocolate peanut butter fudge and she asked Alex if his mom would make her Italian cream cake. _

_Each time she called out another treat she'd look around the room surveying all the hands that were up. Each time she got to his hand, however, she seemed to look up and over it. It was if she couldn't see him at all, as if she didn't want to. _

_One by one every hand was lowered until only two hands remained. Luke eyed Bootsie and Bootsie eyed Luke. This was for all the marbles. The two remaining items left unassigned were drinks and…_

"Napkins, Daddy!" Liz exclaimed excitedly as she bounded into the store.

Bill shot a curious look in his son's direction. 

Luke averted his father's gaze.

"Guess what, guess what, guess what?" she asked quickly as she bounced right in front of their father. She bounced a lot.

"What?" Bill asked, his mood somewhat lifted by his daughter's exuberance.

"My class is having a party!" she answered loudly even though her father was mere inches from her face. "I get to bring the napkins!" 

Luke's snort drew a disapproving gaze from his father. 

"Mrs. Miller said bringing the napkins was the most important job. You can put food on napkins so it doesn't get on the desk, and if the desks do get dirty you can clean them up with the napkins. Napkins are neat," she continued, "can we go and get them now, Daddy? Please?" 

Bill sighed, "Yeah, kiddo. You go up to my office and get changed and we'll go straight to the market as soon as I close up." 

Liz nodded and ran off behind the curtain and up the stairs. 

Bill stood up and walked over towards his son, "So… your class…" 

Luke nodded. 

"And you have to bring…"

"Napkins," Luke groused.

"And you're pissed off because..." 

Luke shrugged. His father wouldn't understand.

"Lucas?" Bill implored. 

"What?" he asked curtly.

"What's wrong?" 

Luke shook his head and nodded in the direction of the stairs as he heard Lizzie coming down them. He could never understand how somebody so little could make so much noise, but he was thankful for the distraction.

"Let's go, let's go, lets go!" 

Bill laughed, "Big rush?" 

"We've got to get to the store before it closes." Liz explained as she grabbed her father's hand and started walking towards the door. 

"It's on the next block," Luke reminded her gruffly.

"So?" Liz asked, a little frown appearing at the corner of her mouth. 

"The store isn't going to close before we get there." 

"Well, they could run out of napkins!"

"They are not going to run out of napkins." Luke sighed but he got up and followed his family out of the store.

By the time they got to Doose's it was packed. "Daaddy," Liz whined as she bounced from foot to foot and tried to crane her neck to check the napkin aisle.

The place was a zoo. People were packed in the place like sardines. It was probably a health code violation… or a fire hazard. "I'm gonna…" Luke tugged on his father's jacket and nodded towards the outside.

"Lucas!" Bill protested but Luke was already out the door.

Luke paced slowly up and down the sidewalk in front of Doose's. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want to watch Kelly with her mom buying the chocolate chips or Johnny's mom explaining that they'd have to let the butter sit out to soften before they could start. He didn't want to watch Mrs. Peterson searching the bottom shelf for cake flower for her dumb Italian cream cake! And he really didn't want to watch stupid giggly Liz get excited about dumb napkins.

Napkins? Napkins were the most important part? Napkins were more expensive versions of paper towels. Paper towels you could get all over the damned school. Plus they had whole containers full of napkins in the cafeteria. Napkins weren't important. They weren't important at all. 

Napkins were the pity assignment. Napkins were what they gave the kids whose mothers died. As if it wasn't bad enough she wasn't going to be there to decorate the tree with him or sing stupid Christmas Carols with Liz. The whole damned holiday was set up to remind him that he no longer had a mom. Now he had to start off the season with a pity walk to school carrying a bag of napkins? Wasn't gonna happen. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't bring them. He wouldn't walk in and listen to them ooh and ahh over the cookies and the cakes and the brownies and place a stack of napkins on the table…

What would the teacher say: "Oooh, Michael your mother's fudge is so rich and creamy. Paul your mother makes such wonderful fudge brownies… I love them. And Luke… you remembered the napkins"?

Luke was pulled from his reverie when he felt something tugging on his pants. "What?" He growled as he shot a glare in his sister's direction.

"I need help." Liz looked up at her brother, her eyes big and her lower lip extended in a pout. 

"Huh?" Luke rolled his eyes. 

"I need help," she repeated. 

No kidding she needed help. "You're buying napkins." 

Liz nodded, "Uh huh." 

"What help could you possibly need? You pick up a pack of napkins. You hand them to Dad. He buys them. You dance off happily. Dad tells you to put them in your bag. You don't. I tell you to put them in your bag. You don't. Dad tells you again to put them in your bag. You don't. You get to class. You realize you forgot them. You close your eyes really tight and wish that you hadn't forgotten them. You open your bag and poof there they are." Luke sighed.

"Magic?" Liz asked wide eyed. 

"Dad," Luke explained. 

"Dad's neat," Liz giggled, "but I need your help now." She tugged on his arm and pulled him back into the store. 

He rolled his eyes in protest but went along anyway. He never could say no to Liz. She pulled him in front of the napkin aisle and waved her hand indicating all the choices. "Which ones?" She asked.

"Which ones what?" Luke sighed. 

"Which ones should I get?" She pointed at several options. 

"They're all the same, Lizzie," he sighed.

"No they aren't!" she whined now poking several packages as if it would illustrate their differences.

"They're napkins, Lizzie. They all do the same job," he looked over at his father for help. "Just some have flowers and ducks." 

"Which ones would Mommy pick?" 

Luke's heart broke as he looked at his sister. He'd been so mad at her about being cheery about the napkins but she missed their mother as much as he did. "These have flowers and they are red and green. They are Christmas flowers." Luke explained as he pulled down a package of green napkins with poinsettias all around them. "Mom loved Christmas and flowers." He assured her as he pressed the package into her hands. "She'd have thought these were the best." 

Lizzie smiled gratefully at her brother. "This is what Mommy would get if she were here?" she asked again, just to be sure. 

If their mother was here they'd be getting butter and flower and confectioner's sugar and all sorts of other things that seemed like nothing until you mixed them all together and put them in the oven. "These are the napkins Mom would get," Luke answered as truthfully as he could.

Bill looked down and caught his son's eye. He finally understood. "But it isn't what your mother would be getting if she were here?" 

"No," Luke answered softly. 

Liz looked worried. 

"They are really great napkins, Elizabeth," Bill assured his daughter. "We'll get these for your class… and maybe we'll get a little something to go with them?" 

"Huh?" Luke looked at his father confused. 

"Well, you kids don't want to disappoint the class by not getting napkins." He winked at Liz. "They are the most important part of any Holiday celebration." 

Luke snorted. Bill glared.

"But maybe we'll add in a little something extra… something not so important… something your mother might have brought." 

Luke furrowed his brow. His father had lost his mind. "Mom would have cooked something." He explained slowly as if it was the only way his father could keep up.

"Yeah." Bill nodded as he brought the napkins to the counter. 

"Mom would have cooked a Black Forest cake with cherry topping and a whipped cream frosting."

"Yeah," Bill agreed.

"Mom's gone," Luke reminded his father.

"No kidding? Hadn't noticed," Bill shot back bitterly, sarcastically.

"We don't cook." 

"Details." 

"Details?" 

Bill paid for the napkins, took Lizzie's hand, left the store and got halfway to home before even acknowledging his doubtful son. "Your mom… she always got a big kick out of people who said they couldn't cook."

"Yeah?" Luke raised an eyebrow. His father had finally lost it. 

"Yep," Bill nodded as he unlocked the house and sent Lizzie upstairs to start her homework.

"Dad?" Luke asked as he followed his father into the kitchen, undoubtedly so his father could heat up one of the never ending supply of casseroles brought over by neighbors since their mother died. Luke hated casserole.

Bill went to the highest shelf in the most remote and dusty cupboard. He pulled out a small box and placed it on the counter in front of him. "She always said, 'if you can read, you can cook,'" Bill explained as he started thumbing through the recipes. "Black Forest cake with cherry topping and whipped cream frosting, right?" he asked his son as he showed him the index card. 

Luke swallowed hard and nodded. The recipe on the card was written in his mother's neat handwriting. He cleared his throat and nodded again.

Bill handled the card carefully, pulled a notepad and pencil from the desk drawer and copied down the ingredients. "You watch your sister. I'll be back in a bit." 

Unsure he could find his voice, Luke simply nodded.

After his father left, Luke went to the recipe box and pulled out each card and fingered his mother's words. He spent so much time watching her work in the kitchen. She always tried to enlist him to help and he sometimes did. He liked spending time with her. He liked how she laughed and teased him gently as she worked. He missed that now and wished he had helped her more. But he was a boy and boys didn't cook.

It never seemed so special what she did. She was a mom. Moms cooked. No big deal. No, not a big deal at all until he lost his mom and started living off the charity of neighbors, TV dinners, and things heated up from a can. Suddenly he realized his mom was the most amazing woman in the world, or at least in the family.

They started the cake together when his father got home. It was messy and awkward and there were a few false starts. They'd dropped some eggshell in the batter and had to start over or bake a crunchy cake. One of the layers crumbled when they tried to cut it so another layer was made. There were some unconventional cooking methods employed, as well. Bill used a ruler to mark the center point of each layer before cutting it in half to apply the frosting. At least Luke stopped him from using the level to measure the evenness of his cut.

And in the end the finished product was a little messier than his mother would have served. The frosting wasn't applied evenly but with all the cherries on top it wasn't so terribly noticeable… if you squinted and didn't look at it too hard. But it was a cake. It was a real cake and if the left-over portions and messed-up layers were any indication, it tasted kind of good.

It wasn't the same as the one his mother would have made. This cake never would have made it out her front door, but it sure as hell wasn't napkins. That was something. And they'd done it themselves, they'd managed. They could do it. He could do it. He could cook food, real food, good food.

And it wasn't girly. Or maybe it was. There were aprons. But in a lot of ways it was the same as what his father did. And nobody ever once in all his life had ever called Luke's father girly. If Bill Danes could take some wood, some glue, a saw and some nails and make a table or a chair or a boat, why couldn't Luke take some flour and apples and whatever else and make a pie? It was the same thing, wasn't it? Taking raw materials and making something useful… something good… something that felt like home.


End file.
